Sparks Fly In Showdown For Adams County Race

The showdown for Adams County commissioner is the hottest race in this rural town, and there’s little that’s good-natured about it.

In a recent debate at the Whispering Palms cafe on Main Street, sparks flew between two-term incumbent Bill Wills and his challenger, wheat farmer Brett Blankenship.

They’re both running as Democrats in a battle for the county’s sprawling, wheat-rich 1st District that will be decided in Tuesday’s primary.

The contest for the $22,500-a-year job was set up in a last-minute face-off at the Adams County Courthouse on the July 26 filing deadline.

When Wills discovered Blankenship was challenging him, he tried to switch parties and file as a Republican.

No dice, the auditor told Wills - it’s past 4:30.

A decade-long rivalry

The Wills-Blankenship rivalry goes back nearly a decade.

It hinges on a bitter controversy: whether this farm county should open its doors to the nation’s biggest garbage company to import 90 million tons of trash to a mega-dump near Washtucna.

But this fall’s race isn’t only about trainloads of trash.

It’s also about the future of a county with a tight-knit leadership clique, a rising crime rate and tense political and racial undercurrents between its two main towns, Ritzville and Othello.

“Adams County is dysfunctional in a lot of ways, and that includes courthouse politics,” said Dean Judd, an ex-county commissioner and former Othello newspaper editor who moved to Olympia to head a rural community assistance team for Gov. Mike Lowry.

Despite their common Democratic labels, Wills and Blankenship are on opposite sides on most issues.

In 1991, Blankenship helped found a grass-roots group, the Organization to Preserve Agricultural Lands, that has fought a losing legal battle against Waste Management Inc.’s planned landfill.

Wills invited the waste king into the county and remains an outspoken ally. He calls himself the company “go-between” and pals around with Waste Management’s ubiquitous press aide, Scott Cave.

Waste Management promised to pay a “host fee” to the county for every ton of trash it imports. Wills says the cash-for-trash bonanza could bring as much as $1 million a year to the county someday.

But Blankenship scoffs at that. He says big cities, including Seattle, already have decided to send their trash elsewhere.

The candidates’ styles, like their positions on the issues, are poles apart.

Wills, 65, is a transplanted Southerner with a Kentucky twang and a grade-school education who runs a septic tank-cleaning business with his son in Lind. He came to Othello with the Air Force in 1951 and stayed.

Sporting tan cowboy boots and a customized WILLS belt, he personifies an aw-shucks, down-home approach to rural politics.

“I’m not a rocket scientist - I’m just a plain old Joe,” Wills tells his chamber of commerce audience.

Blankenship, 38, is the youngest in a family of pioneer farmers who work 10,000 acres of wheat fields. He has a penchant for political satire.

He once penned a sarcastic version of “The Night Before Christmas,” skewering dump supporters. He also has called them “waste puppets.”

The Eastern Washington University graduate has a master’s degree in piano performance from New York’s Eastman School of Music. He’s been to Europe, is married to an artist and has performed at the governor’s mansion in Olympia.

Blankenship says it’s time for smarter and more inclusive leadership. “People want a commissioner who will listen to them and who isn’t a pawn for special interests. It’s the difference between good government and government for good old boys,” he said.

Under Wills’ tenure, commissioners have engaged in too much unproductive bickering, Blankenship said.

As an example, he cited an escalating feud between Wills and Adams County Prosecutor David Sandhaus over the county’s rising crime rate.

Sandhaus says Wills is thwarting his efforts to bring in more state criminal justice money. He is supporting Blankenship with a $100 donation, according to financial disclosure reports.

Wills counters that Sandhaus has plenty of money to fight crime - and he’s just power-hungry. “We’ve tripled his budget since 1988,” Wills said. “We’ve done good with the prosecuting attorney.”

Hard to tell who’s ahead

The Ritzville Chamber of Commerce debate quickly turned nasty.

Wills paced the floor, passing out copies of a 5-year-old letter about the Blankenship family’s private negotiations with Waste Management over optioning some of its land next to the proposed landfill site.

“They said they’d be neutral for an amount of money,” Wills said.

Blankenship’s reply: He was the lone family member who voted against continuing to deal. Blankenship Farms later passed a corporate resolution never to sell an inch.

As Blankenship talked, County Clerk Bob Blair and Waste Management spokesman Cave walked out. “I had an appointment,” Cave said Wednesday.

Wills said the Organization to Preserve Agricultural Lands has created “turmoil” in the county by suing commissioners over the landfill. “You don’t ask for an advisory vote, you don’t name-call and you don’t bash the county commissioners,” he fumed.

As a result of OPAL’s lawsuit, Wills had to appear in court to explain his repeated contacts with Waste Management officials before public landfill votes.

Whitman County Superior Court Judge Wallis Friel ruled the contacts didn’t violate state law, and the state Supreme Court agreed.

Wills resents the implication he’s the “water boy” for Waste Management, as Blankenship charges.

“Wills isn’t in the pocket of nobody,” he said.

It’s hard to gauge who’s ahead in the race. Political pollsters rarely operate in Adams County.

The Ritzville newspaper, which favors the regional landfill, has run mostly pro-Wills letters in recent weeks.

Blankenship would make the best commissioner, said one Ritzville businesswoman at the chamber debate who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation from Wills.

But Adams County has re-elected Wills for years, and many county residents resent OPAL’s lawsuits, she said. “Waste Management has a lot of money, and people know it,” she said.

“I hope Brett doesn’t have a chance,” said ex-Mayor Thom Kembel of Ritzville, who supports Wills.

Blankenship has an excellent chance, said wheat grower Chris Lyle of Ritzville.

He has run a positive campaign, is well-educated and can weigh both sides before making decisions, Lyle said. “I’m optimistic. The outcome will depend on turnout.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos